I have created this blog to share my interest in all forms of stitching, quilting, sewing, knitting, medieval re-enactment and costume making – particularly my love of historical embroidery

Category: medieval art

Hello everyone, hope that you have been having a lovely week. I have which was very nice, it is always sad having to go back to work after a great holiday but I have had a really good few days.

I have had fun times with the trainees that came to our Spring Conference, presented at our own Research Conference and then went to see a brilliant Bluegrass band last night.

The sun is shining and washing is on the line! What could be better? Oh and I have the weekend free to craft. An excellent life indeed.

I wanted to share with you some of my favourite paintings from the Prado, photos were not allowed so all of these have come from web sources, one of my favourite sources is the Web Gallery of Art which I use a lot for costume research.

While we were in Florence a couple of years ago we saw some of the work of one of my favourite artists Fra Angelico and there were two more of his works in the Prado.

The Annunciation is stunning, there are many similar paintings which are equally lovely but the detail on this one is so wonderful, the millefiori (million flowers) on the grass outside, the starry ceiling and the gold of the halos and beam just amaze me.

There is a close up here which shows the detail of the beam of light and halos.

The Prado Museum had recently acquired another of his works, ‘The Virgin and the Pomegranate’. This had only arrived in January and you can read the history of the painting at this link here , so we were very lucky in the timing of our visit.

I love the look on Jesus’s face reaching for the pomegranate seeds as if he a little unsure what they will be like.

One of our favourite pieces was this enormous painting by Bartholomeus Strobel. He was a German painter who was painting in the early 1600s and this is entitled, ‘The Beheading of John the Baptist’.

Again the detail in this is fantastic, the painting is about 10 metres long and every person is painted with such care, the amount of work that has gone into this is staggering and the costumes are wonderful to look at.

These were painted between 1617 and 1618 and not only are the stunning in the wealth of detail in them but the backgrounds are so beautiful.

‘Sight’, shows an archway to a town, wouldn’t you just love to step into the painting and out that arch and explore?

This is part of the detail from ,’Hearing’, the same castle appears in the background of a couple of the paintings and it looks very similar to the ones we visited in Denmark last year as they had green roofs.

This one above, ‘Sight and Smell’, was also by Brueghel and is a copy of the original done shortly after as the original was destroyed in a fire in the 1700s.

I just love that little glimpse through the doorway and all the landscapes propped up on the floor.

My research paper was on masters and their apprentices and I mentioned the role of the ,’masterpiece’, in that process.

These truly are masterpieces and I am so lucky to have seen them. I would love to go back to the Prado on my next visit to Madrid, so much more to see and wonders to see again.

I hope you have enjoyed your little virtual tour, I am off for a bit of a garden tidy up now since it is still sunny and then an afternoon and knitting and embroidery 🙂

I think this has to be my favourite city so far – the churches and palaces full of frescos and medieval art, the Uffizi Gallery with even more medieval art, the beautiful buildings and views over the Tuscan hills and the gorgeous food.

View from the Ponte Vecchio looking at the Arno River.

Some of the 80 ice cream flavours to choose from in the shop near our hotel.

I loved the display at this shop in one of the side streets, We came back with pasta, herbs and oils, yum, yum!

And there are also lovely shops if you are into that, personally I am not going to pay 10 times the price I can here for a pair of designer sandals but we did a little window shopping and marvelled at what some of the so-called fashions were priced at.

We stayed at the Albergo Firenze, another one of my fantastic finds from Expedia. Although it was rated only 2 star it was a gorgeous room, really good value for money and the location is excellent – 5 mins walk either way from the Palazzo Vecchio and the cathedral so exactly where you want to be.

I have put a tiny selection of pics here and included many more in the slideshow below if you are interested.

Angel mosaics in the Baptistry.

Detail from one of the Madonnas in the Palazzo Vecchio.

Detail from one of the Annunciation frescos in the Santa Maria Novella church.

One of the chapel paintings from the same church.

We also saw some beautiful silver and goldwork, this was an altar piece frontal in the museum of the Santa Lorenzo church dating from the late 1700s.

I also loved this ceiling painting from the Plazzo Vecchio with its depiction of women spinning, weaving and sewing.

I had seen some of the fresco paintings from the churches before as many are in medieval costume books – look at these two beautiful gowns from frescos in the Santa Croche church.